Monkey culture
It all started with a cage containing five monkeys. Inside the cage, a banana was hung on a string and a set of stairs was placed under it. Before long, a monkey went to the stairs and started to climb towards the banana. As soon as he touched the stairs, all of the other monkeys were sprayed with cold water. After a while, another monkey made an attempt with the same result - all the other monkeys were sprayed with cold water. Pretty soon, anytime another monkey tried to climb the stairs, the other monkeys tried to prevent it.
After a couple of days, the cold water was removed. One monkey was removed from the cage and replaced with a new one. The new monkey saw the banana and wanted to climb the stairs. To his surprise and horror , all of the other monkeys attacked him. After another attempt and attack, he knew that if he tried to climb the stairs, he would be assaulted.
Next, another of the original five monkeys was removed and replaced it with a new one. The newcomer went to the stairs and was attacked. The previous newcomer took part in the punishment with enthusiasm! Likewise, a third original monkey was replaced with a new one, then a fourth, then the fifth.
Every time the newest monkey took to the stairs, he was attacked. Most of the monkeys that were beating him had no idea why they were not permitted to climb the stairs or why they were participating in the beating of the newest monkey.
After replacing all the original monkeys, none of the remaining monkeys had ever been sprayed with cold water. Nevertheless, no monkey ever again approached the stairs to try for the banana.
Why not?
Because as far as they know, that's the way it's always been done around here. And that, is how most of our rituals and customs began.
Sunburnt
a few days ago i borrowed a PlexWriter from a friend. my AOpen 20X CDRW has stopped working on my computer. at first i would get Fixation Errors in Nero. I switched to CDRWin and was able to burn 4 or 5 cds before it started bailing out as well. Further investigation with VCDEasy told me the new error was a Power Calibration Error. AOpen's website, in taiwan, was of no help. however, google provided me with quite a number of angry AOpen customer posts on various forums complaining about how the burners stop working after about a year. mine lasted more than a year. not bad i guess.
the PlexWriter is eXcellent. it is 24X and burns a cd in 4 minutes and 30 something seconds. all hail Plextor.
i biked to Carleton earlier today. couldn't find any spare air conditioner that i could borrow for the summer. afterwards, it took 34 minutes to bike back home.. but those 34 minutes in the sun were enough to do this :
34 degrees celsius | 93.2 fahrenheit
tomorrow 2 pm i shall be free!! mythist, on the other hand, is still busy trying to make up her mind about the movie plan. i shudder to think about how chaotic the inner workings of her brain might be. synapses firing all over the place.. intermingling with one another, creating false positive and non negative charges which randomly discharge themselves.. leaving unfinished thoughts floating in the dark caverns within the seemingly endless cranial cavity .. eeeek
Hot hot heat
"We don't expect any precipitation from Monday overnight to Tuesday overnight." +unfortunately
it is blazing hot today. there is a yellow disc in the sky and it is dehydrating every living thing in its view. walking to Baseline station alone requires one full bottle of Dasani Remineralized, Reverse-Osmosisized, and Non-Carbonated Water. my kidney for an air conditioner!!
shekhar got a co-op job at Nortel... excellent. he treated me to free ice-cream treat at DQ ... but it makes me wonder why am i not in Co-op :|
HULK SMASH pantsu!!!!
"Which one are you ?", Kelly asked me.
"Monkey", i replied after a brief pause during which i pretended to consult the small Chinese Zodiac Signs chart. i did not want to appear too eager.
"Hmm, monkey.. monkey..", she said as she browsed through the three different kinds of necklaces looking for one with a monkey on it. she found it presently but it wasn't the design she liked. there were three types, rectangular, heart-shaped, and acorn-shaped. the first one being masculine while the last two "for girls".
She asked the Chinese lady behind the stall if she had any rectangular Monkey necklaces. The conversation switched to Chinese, Mandarin or Cantonese i do not know, and both of them started lifting the cases looking for what she wanted.
I looked around, cursed the heat again, and fiddled with some of the pretty handstraps that were also on display. I thought about sneaking away and getting the bracelet she was looking at only a few minutes earlier but decided not to. She had said something about it not being worth the price it was being sold at. Women always seem to know where to get the same stuff cheaper.
Besides, she had already refused to let me get anything, not even the $2 hand-painted picture. I guess it was the principle of the thing, "This is a Chinese Festival so i should give you something.. give you some Chinese Culture."
Few minutes later the duo decided that they were not going to find what they were looking for.
"There are no Monkey ones left in this shape. How about these two ? Which one do you like ? The heart-shaped is too girlish but the other one is alright."
I, naturally, opted for the acorn-shaped one. But then she picked up the Dragon necklace, rectangular-shaped.
"How about this one ? It's a Dragon yeah but Dragon should be fine for anyone."
"Oh, you're right. Besides, Dragons are cool." // geez.. * smacks head *
So now we had three necklaces, two Monkey ones and one Dragon, and i had to choose one. I decided to go with the Dragon.
She picked up the small box, opened it up, and took a closer look at the thing. The Chinese characters to the right of the Dragon had faded out. She picked up another similar necklace but it had some sort of a blemish on it.
Another Chinese conversation during which the shopkeepers tried to convince her that the necklace is not damaged and the blemish is negligible. But damaged goods are damaged goods. And so i got this one :
domo arigato gozaimasu
In other news, it takes 2 hours to bike from my house to dooh's house, 1 hour and a half to bike to downtown ottawa, 30 minutes to bike to Merivale/Baseline, and 20 minutes to bike down to kelly's house. double-sawari on my bike is not hard at all.
Everything is set for Toronto RoadTrip #2. We depart on the 28th.
Fundraiser for victims of war [ "which war was it ?" ] had eXcellent samosas. Also, apparently the simpler the noodles the better they taste. I *think* i'm getting better at using chopsticks.. i should buy a pair and practice. I had a new window installed Saturday morning.
shackBooks, emotenation, authentication, and some sort of a message board are on hold for the time being >:(
But now i will start reading the assigned texts.. and do some more reading.. and a bit more reading.. and did i mention i have some reading to do ?
